It is, as of the 2001 Census, home to 30,007,094 people. It's a fairly fast growing nation, registering 4% growth between 2001 and 1996. It's estimated that we currently have about 32 million residents.

Sitting right atop the United States, and absorbing much of their culture through diffusion, Canada is the country that is the most like their neighbours to the south. But not too much. I really can't expect to write a comprehensive writeup on Canada without looking at the similarities, and more importantly, the differences. From the obvious, such as the influence of French culture and our political system, to the less obvious, such as our lower crime rate, and generally more liberal attitude.

So anyways, I think I'll start off with a rather quick summary of the geography of Canada. An in-depth look would be much too large for any node, it *IS* a large country after all. Then I shall move on to the culture, politics, and then the history of my favourite country.

Yes, I know this is a very long node. My longest by a factor of two. It's a big country, with an interesting history, and I'd rather not do a half assed job.

I think every Canadian should have a map of Canada in his or her house. It should be displayed in a place where one can sit and contemplate the wonderful vastness of this land. As Canadians we are continuously groping for an identity and a sense of love for our nation. We grapple with the concept, find it somewhat distasteful and leave it for another day. We find American flag waving, hand over heart while belting out Oh, say, can you see... too much and avoid doing the same. We admire their national spirit, but Canadians are, in contrast, understated. To understand the identity that exists in our hearts think of our sweepingly majestic home, its quiet, serene beauty. A beauty recognizable to us all. We are proud of this nation and of who we are. We just don't say it. It's like the map. It just sits there on the wall displaying the lines of our coasts, the bulk of our waterways, and the breadth of our northern territories. Surveying all of this leaves me in awe. It brings a tear to my eye...O Canada...
- Debora O'Neil

The Geography of Canada really needs its own node. No, scratch that, the Geography of Canada really needs a dozen nodes of its own. We've got a total area of 9,976,140 square kilometers, with everything from rainforest to frozen wastelands. Land mass wise, we're the 2nd largest country in the world. People write books on this stuff. I'm going to try and give you a quick overview.

anthropod says re Canada: with the breakup of the Soviet Union we must be the largest country in the world, no?
anthropod says Humph. Damn russians. ;-)

Vancouver Island lies off the western coast of British Columbia. Well, that's not really true, since it's a part of B.C., but you get the idea. It's covered mostly with forests, with some rainforest, and a mountain range in the middle. Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, near the southern tip of the island, gets great weather and is quite popular as both a tourist destination, and a choice for retirement.

Tourism, Forestry, and Mining are fairly big on the island, and they've got some nice fishing there.

The coastal area of B.C. is quite like Vancouver Island, with much forested area, and a few mountains. It's quite temperate, with some of the highest winter low temperatures in the country, which is what attracts many people to Vancouver. On the other hand, it also gets a *lot* of rain. Something on the par of 300 days of precipitation per year.

Moving inland, you get less rain and more sun, a good example of this being the Okanogan Valley, which is the centre for fruit growing in the province. Moving northward, up on into the Yukon Territory, it basically stays the same, except colder.

Again, Forestry is B.C.'s biggest industry, followed by Tourism. There's some mining, and some agriculture, and still the fishing. Salmon mostly.

Much of this area is, naturally, devoted to agriculture. And, let's face it, grassland isn't exactly all that exiting. The flatter the more boring. It gets *real* flat in Saskatchewan. This area makes up most of these provinces, gradually turning into woodlands in the north.

The economy is mostly farming in Saskatchewan, most of Manitoba, and Southern Alberta. Up in the north of Alberta, they have some forestry, but the main bulk of the economy for the province is in the oil and gas sector.

And of course, much of the economy feeds off the oil and gas, fueling hi-tech stuff of various types. Calgary has the 2nd highest number of corporate head offices in the country, behind Toronto, because of this.

Far North

The further north you go, the colder it gets. Plant and animal life dies off. Once you get to the Tundra, with its Permafrost soil, there are very few plants capable of surviving during the times of the year where at least the top layer of soil is melted, let alone plants capable of thriving in these conditions.

That's pretty much what everyone thinks about the Far North, and while it's not entirely accurate, it's pretty close to the truth.

Mostly mining, if I recall correctly.

We've also got a whole bunch of ice covered islands in the Arctic Ocean. Hard to tell the difference at times, since 10 months of the year, the Ocean is frozen. The largest of these would be Baffin Island.

The area is rocky, with only a thin layer of topsoil, due to the effects of glaciers covering the region in the last ice age. It tends to be fairly heavily wooded. It is quite hilly, with many small lakes. Generally unsuited to farming, there are often mining operations.

It stretches down till you get to some much larger lakes, the Great Lakes, down in the south of Ontario.

The areas around the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River are surrounded by flat, fertile lowlands, generally lightly wooded. The weather further inland generally gets more and more temperate. They grow some damned tasty corn down there.

This area is where the highest concenration of Canada's manufacturing sector is, and the highest population density, so of course it's got the business too. They're keeping busy.

It has been quite some time since I've been that far east, so I'm likely foggy on the subject. Feel free to /msg me with corrections. Actually, that goes for pretty much anything in this writeup.

Anyways, the Maritime Provinces seem to be green and hilly, with some forests. New Brunswick in paticular has a decent forestry industry. The coastline is generally quite steep, with many a rocky cliff and a whole bunch of bays and gulfs, including the Bay of Fundy, which has the steepest tides in the world.

Update: And it's been pointed out that I left out Nova Scotia from this section. Again, I don't really know all that much about Nova Scotia, so I'm going to assume that geographically and such it's pretty much the same. Still, gotta give props to a place that's Latin for New Scotland. Latin rocks.

They used to have a lot of fish, but due to over fishing and general mis-management, they don't anymore. When they finally figured this out, and severely curtailed fishing from the Grand Banks, unemployment soared. In all honesty, Newfoundland was there because of the fish.

It's really not a very nice place to live.

Update: Apparently I am incorrect!

2006.01.26 at 06:43 frankdeluxe says Hey, I just read your Canada writeup. I'm from Newfoundland, and Newfoundland is a great place to live.

Well, at the top, we've got the Head of State. This is *NOT* the Prime Minister. We're a Constitutional Monarchy, which means that we've got a King or a Queen. Of course, we don't actually have one of our own, so we just borrow England's.

But Palpz, you may ask, Queen Elizabeth II has only visited Canada a couple of times in your life, how could she possibly be carrying out all the duties of a Head of State?

Well, she isn't. She just gets someone else to do that for her. So, she appoints a Governor General for Canada to act as a de facto Head of State. It's this person who has to sign legislation in order to make it a law, it's them who acts as the Commander in Chief of the Canadian Armed Forces, and generally to just represent the Queen in Canada, and Canada abroad.

Governor Generals are generally appointed for a five year term, however sometimes it's longer. Currently, Her Excellency, the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson is serving as Governor General. She's one of the better ones that we've had for a while, a former CBC News Reporter who emigrated to Canada from Hong Kong when she was 3.

Update: Now it's Michaëlle Jean, who was a reporter for the CBC, who emigrated to Canada from Haiti when she was 11. Hmmm... do I detect a trend here?

So, that's who's at the top. The Governor General has the right to veto any legislation, commands the armed forces, calls elections, and doesn't use those powers ever.

No, seriously. While in theory she's the most powerful person in Canada, the last time that a Governor General used his powers against the wishes of the Prime Minister was in the 1930's. Here's another little tidbit, the Prime Minister isn't mentioned in the Constitution. Anywhere.

That's pretty much the way we work it here in Canada. Most of what we do is based upon not what we write down, but upon tradition.

Lawmakers

Anyhow, the legislative branch of government consists of the House of Commons, and the Senate. The House of Commons drafts legislation, the Senate approves it. It's pretty much there to act as a voice of reason, to make sure no hasty decisions are made.

The House of Commons has a number of members proportional to population, each of them representing a constituency with roughly the same population. Thus, you'll have a Member of Parliament (MP) from Calgary Centre having the same voting power as the guy who was elected by a fairly large chunk of rural Saskatchewan.

Members of the Senate represent Provinces or Territories. They started out by assigning 24 Senators to 4 regions, the Western Provinces, the Atlantic Provinces, Quebec, and Ontario. Then they gave each Territory one, and added a few to the Atlantic Provinces, supposedly to even out the power a bit. Currently, the total is 105.

Not that it really matters, because once again, as a matter of tradition, the Senate doesn't really do much. Senators can serve until they reach the age of 75, or whenever they wish to retire.

So yeah, that's the legislative branch. As mentioned before, the executive branch is technically the Governor General, but in reality, it's the Cabinet.

Movers and Shakers

The Cabinet is made out of a bunch of senior members of the party that has the most seats in the House of Commons. Most of them has portfolios to take care of, such as the Minister of Defence, in charge of the military, and the Minister of Finance, in charge of, oh hell, you can figure that one out.

There's sometimes Ministers without portfolios, who don't have any branches of government under them, but still get to sit in on cabinet meetings and argue with the rest of the Ministers about stuff.

And then of course, there's the Prime Minister. He's the leader of the party. He's the guy everyone wants to talk to about stuff.

How these guys are chosen is pretty much up to whatever party is in power. For example, our ex-Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Jean Chretien, seemed to have a habit of firing people who want his job. Not that I can really blame him, but I just don't trust the guy.

Eventually, he got forced out by his party, when they chose someone else as the party leader. From that point on, Paul Martin was the prime minister. And the next election wasn't till like 8 months later. He did, kind of, win that. The liberals managed to maintain a plurality of seats in the House of Commons, but not a majority. This means that if the opposition really really wants to, they can shoot down any measure brought before the house. If this happens, in many cases, tradition dictates that an election would be immediately called.

Update: And hey, guess what, that's what happened! The last election was held in January of 2006, and the Conservative Party of Canada managed to win a plurality of seats, thus vaulting leader Stephen Harper to the position of Prime Minister. Again, a minority government, but they've been doing rather well since then, with polls indicating that if another election were to be held soon, they would at the very least gain seats, if not form a majority government. Thus, with the Conservatives riding high, it's not in the opposition's best interests to force an election.

But the Prime Minister does have a lot of power. The Governor General is chosen by the Queen... on the advice of the Prime Minister. Any Senators are appointed to the upper house by the Governor General... on the advice of the Prime Minister.

Party Disciple is usually fairly tight in Canada. For most stuff, if an MP doesn't vote along the lines of what the party leadership decides is best, they're usually get kicked out of the party. Most of the time, this would ruin their chances of re-election.

Most people in the country vote along party lines, so some people do get pissed off when who they voted for changes sides. While they technically voted for the guy, they didn't vote for him/her because they like 'em, they voted for 'em because they liked the other guys that the guy hangs around with. Having an Independent MP is quite rare, although not unheard of. There are currently 2.

The Judicial branch works similar to a lot of countries. The highest court in the land is the Supreme Court of Canada, which has 9 members. Each of the provinces have a number of levels, with any disputes unresolved by the Court of Appeals of the province moving on to the Supreme Court, assuming they agree to hear it.

I'm sure that something similar is in effect for each of the territories.

In nine of the ten provinces, and the three territories, stuff runs on the concept of English common law. In Quebec however, they run things the way the French do, by the civil code. Personally, I know nothing about it, and I really wish someone would do a nice writeup about it.

For Criminal proceedings, at the lower levels you have the right to a trial by jury. After some appeals, you're run into just judges.

For Civil proceedings, you're going to start out with just a judge, and just get more judges the higher up you take your case.

Provinces and Territories

As for how the provinces and territories work, it's pretty much like a miniature version of the Federal Government. Instead of a Governor General, they've got a Lieutenant Governor, instead of Members of Parliament, they've got Members of the Legislative Assembly. Instead of a Prime Minister, they've got a Premier. That's about all that's different.

Actually, that's wrong. In Ontario, they're Members of Provincial Parliament. They just like being difficult. And it might be different in other provinces too, I haven't checked them all.

Let's face it, Canada is a rather liberal country. This is fairly evident when you look at the Federal Government's budget. In 2002, 20% of the budget was Elderly Benefits, 10% was Employment Insurance payments, 14% was on health care, and 9% on the military, and the rest just random stuff, like transfers to provincial governments, the Justice department, or the Indian and Northern Affairs department. Total was about $60 billion.

We like our health care system. We try and make sure that people are never *too* bad off. And, we don't really spend enough on our military. Of course, I may be biased, because I've been thinking of joining it, but a lot of our equipment needs replacing at the least.

But, compare that to our neighbours to the south, who often criticize us for not spending enough on our defence. Not "pulling our weight". I can tell you that there's no way that we will ever spend as much on the military as they do, even percentage wise. We've simply got different priorities, like, oh say, making sure everyone can actually afford to see a doctor once in a while.

Bah, enough ranting for now.

CtF reminded me I should say something about the debt. Canada does owe a lot of money. Currently, the Federal Government owes a little less than $550 Billion. This isn't a good thing, but thankfully past budgets have seen the national debt steadily decreasing.

I could only find figures for the total debt of all the provinces combined, but that's something along the lines of $240 Billion. Of course, some of them, such as B.C. and Newfoundland have more than others, such as Alberta, but I'd imagine it's roughtly spread out on a per capita basis.

To date, Alberta is the only one that has made its main goal reducing the debt, whereas some keep running at a deficit. I'm not saying that every province should take Alberta's approach, because that came at a cost of massive cuts to Education and Health Care, but they really should look at it more. Paying off interest is generally not productive.

And a little update. In the summer of 2004, the Alberta government announced that it now has allocated all the money nessessary to pay off the debt. Any further surplus generated by oil revenues is an actual surplus now.

Who are we, what are we doing in this cold place?

Canadians have been so busy explaining to the Americans that we aren't British, and to the British that we aren't Americans that we haven't had time to become Canadians.

How do you define what it's like to be Canadian. Most of the time it seems like you can't do it except by saying how we're different, how we're different from the Americans, from the British, from the French, from the Aussies. What is there about our citizens that we can put in terms of "We're not like them this way".

So what is there? Well, we're not very violent people, not nearly as much as the Americans, although perhaps a bit more than the British. If you want stats, go watch Bowling for Columbine.

We're basically socialist, even here in redneckAlberta, we really like our health care system, and aren't about to give it up. Being a socialist isn't essential to being Canadian, there's plenty of people opposed to the idea, i.e. the Canadian Alliance, but when you add it all up, and compare it to other countries, that's pretty much what you get.

We export a *lot* of Comedians. Apparently we're all supposed to be funny. I guess I can see that to some extent, all I know is that I'm pissed off that Rick Mercer isn't on 22 Minutes anymore.

We don't spend as much on the military as others. It'd be a safe bet to say that most Canadians would rather us focus on helping out others, as opposed to doing silly stuff like propping up dictators, or acting as police to the world.

And then of course there's the mix of French and English culture. It is rather pervasive, more so the further east you travel, of course. But still, even here in good old redneck Alberta, there's a fairly extensive French immersion education program, and I don't know many people who didn't take at least a few years of French in school.

But, yeah, I don't really know what to say about this, anyone with more insight please /msg me.

One rather major difference between us and the United States is our attitudes towards drinking. The drinking age in the United States is 21. The drinking age in Canada is either 18 or 19, depending on province.

Does this mean that our teenagers drink more than American teens? Not bloody likely. It has been my experience that most Americans start drinking younger than their Canadian counterparts. Not only that, but when they do drink, they drink harder.

We're more likely to sit down and have a single beer with lunch, or a glass of wine with dinner, instead of out and getting absolutely wrecked. Now, I'm not saying that Canadians don't binge drink at all, just that it happens less often. What causes this? Methinks an after effect of Prohibition, but no one can really say.

I'm not really sure what else I can throw in here about how we may be different, so let's talk about some similarities, shall we?

Americans should never underestimate the constant pressure on Canada which the mere presence of the United States has produced. We're different people from you and we're different people because of you. Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is effected by every twitch and grunt. It should not therefore be expected that this kind of nation, this Canada, should project itself as a mirror image of the United States.

We absorb American culture. Every Hollywood blockbuster is played on screens across Canada, every music video is on MuchMusic, every new single on our radio stations, every paperback on the book stores.

I mean, when the CRTC actually feels the need to regulate a minimum amount of Canadian content on radio and television, you know that at least some people view it as a problem. But what can you honestly do? 300 million people versus 30 million people, no matter what you try, stuff's going to seep across the border.

There are really no elements of American culture that don't exist in Canada, in some amounts. We've got the stoners, we've got the yuppies, we've got the gang violence, we've got the family with 2.4 kids and a dog, we've got the white kids pretending to be black. Just less of some things, and more of others. And some of them speak French. And they get free health care.

The first European explorer who landed upon the shores of modern day Canada was Leif Eriksson, who around 1000 C.E. hit Baffin Island, Labrador, and then spent the winter in Newfoundland, before heading back to Greenland. He was doing this to impress his father, but when he got back, he found out his father had died, and he had to take over, and never did get around to coming back.

There was a settlement of Vikings in Newfoundland, or Vinland as they called it, but they were eventually driven off by conflicts with those Natives already there.

The next person to land upon the shores of Canada was John Cabot, who was of course looking for Asia. He came back to England and told the king all about it, and about how they could catch massive amounts of cod off the banks of his "new found land".

When they eventually figured out that they hadn't reached Asia, interest in the area waned. They made fishing trips, but let's face it, fish is nothing compared to the silks and the spices that they were hoping for.

Anyhow, eventually France sent their own guy to check things out, and in 1534 Jacques Cartier charted the area around Newfoundland, and up into the St. Lawrence River. The next year he came back, and focused more upon the St. Lawrence, exploring the north bank of the river, such as the present day Quebec City, and naming a mountain behind an Indian village Mont Real.

In 1541, France tried to establish a colony about where Quebec City is. After about 60 of the colonists died of scurvy and the harsh winter, they gave up and sailed home, not coming back for another 50 years.

But anyways, people kept coming for the fish, and as they picked up fish, they also traded with the Natives for furs. This trade grew more and more lucrative, and eventually, in an effort to get people to establish permanent colonies, the French king began giving exclusive fur trading rights to those who would set up colonies.

A couple of these were established, and then failed. The first successful one was established by Pierre de Guast, on the shores of the Bay of Fundy. He brought along an explorer by the name of Samuel de Champlain, who quickly got to charting the coastline around Nova Scotia, and the NE Coast of the United States.

Two years after its founding, in 1607, the monopoly on the fur trade was revoked, and Champlain convinced everyone to move, setting up the first permanent colony at Quebec City.

These colonies grew, slowly but steadily, with a few disruptions. Meanwhile, the English seemed to be concentrating upon their colonies in the south, which the exception of a few people still trying to reach the North West Passage, such as Henry Hudson, who found Hudson Bay in 1610, but was set adrift when he insisted upon continuing north west, *after* being stuck in the bay by ice for the winter. His crew made it back to tell people about the discoveries made.

The French not only set up fur trading posts, but also sent in missionaries, to convert the locals to Christianity. That was real nice of them, wasn't it? It's also around this time that the Natives started dying off of diseases brought from Europe, that they of course had no defences built up against.

The English Take Over

So, eventually, the English figured out that the way to get rich off this land was furs, and not spices from China or Gold like there was further south.

The Hudson's Bay Company was founded in 1670, and given exclusive fur trading rights in all areas whose rivers drained into the Hudson Bay. That's a lot of land.

Trading was brisk until 1689, when war broke out between England and France, as they tended to do back in the day.

This is pretty much the way it went for quite some time, new settlements, trading posts, forts, military instillations popping up all over the place, and every once in a while, they'd get together to burn the other's down.

And as this was going on, the French pretty much steadily lost. For example, in Queen Anne's War, 1702-1713, they lost Port Royal, the territory around Hudson's Bay, Newfoundland, and Acadia.

And then, in 1756, the Seven Years War broke out in Europe, which of course carried over to the colonies. Things for the English were going pretty well, except for Quebec, where the French General Montcalm was adept at using the natural defences of the area, the cliffs and such.

Eventually, the British General James Wolfe decided to launch a risky night time landing, and was able to defeat the French come morning, in the battle on the Plains of Abraham.

Both Wolfe and Montcalm were mortally injured in the battle, but it was this battle that pretty much decided which of the super powers would be in charge of this part of North America, since Montreal quickly fell, cut off from supplies and reinforcements from France.

But after the war was over, and the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763, the English had a different problem. What the hell are they to do with the 60,000 or so Frenchmen living in their new colony?

They dealt with the French in Acadia differently than they did with the ones in New France, for some reason. We'll go into Acadia first

Now, the British didn't really trust this paticular group of Frenchmen. I don't know why, some of my sources say that they didn't care who was ruling, as long as they were left alone, some said that they didn't want the British to be in charge at all. Who's right? Little of column A, little of column B i'm sure. Anyhow, they decided that these guys should be required to pledge allegience to the King, and convert from Catholicism, if they wanted to stay.

Some of they did do so, but most of them didn't. So they got deported. All of those who refused to pledge got shipped off to France's other holdings in the Americas. In other words, they got shipped to Louisiana.

This is the source of the cajun culture that permeates that region of the United States to this day.

Well, in New France they tried things out for a bit, thought about it, and eventually, in 1774 passed the Quebec Act. This landmark piece of legislation recognized the Roman Catholic Church's influence in the area, guaranteeing their right to collect tithes, and also said that French civil law would govern dealings between citizens, instead of English common law. That's still the way it works today, with 9 provinces and 3 territories dealing with common law, and Quebec with their civil code.

It also set the boundaries of Quebec as stretching all the way down to the Ohio River.

While this was likely a pleasant surprise for the Frenchmen living in Quebec, their neighbours to the south didn't really like that anywhere west to them was now a part of this new territory. This, combined with that whole taxation without representation that England decided to do to pay off debts incurred during the fighting for Quebec, and other random jackassery, prompted the 13 colonies to revolt from their King.

Rather silly, if you ask me.

Anyhow, it was probably a good thing that the English got on the good side of the people of Quebec, because otherwise they might have had some trouble raising the militia that they needed to defend the place when the Americans tried to "free the 14th colony".

They held a siege of the fortress over the winter, but Montgomery was killed, and Arnold was injured, as well as a fair proportion of their men, so they gave up and went home, leaving Canada alone for a while.

This was the first serious influx of English speaking residents since the beginning of the New France experiment. This required a bit of juggling of the borders. About 35,000 people settled in the Maritime region, so they split that into New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.

About 5,000 made the longer trek to the lands to the north and to the west of Lake Ontario, and north of the St. Lawrence River, just to the east of the lake.

That settlement kept growing, and it became clear after a while that they weren't going to settle for the limited rights given to them by the Quebec Act, not to mention the French Laws.

So, they enacted the Constitutional Act in 1791, which split Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada, Upper being roughly where Ontario is, and Lower Canada about where Quebec is. It also set out the people to be governed by a legislative council and a legislative assembly, the former being selected by appointment for life, and the latter being elected by the people.

The first settlers in Western Canada were some Scottish farmers who had lost their farms back home. They settled in the Red River Valley, near present day Winnipeg, in 1817. Although there was some fighting between the settlers and some of the traders of the North West Company, along with the Metis living in the area, the settlement stuck around.

The British were still managing to piss off the Americans. So, the Americans decided to try and drive the British off the continent. It didn't really work out that way.

Their initial offences floundered, leading to the capture of several key American military instillations, including the fortress at Detroit.

The British fleet pretty much had blockaded the Americans, enabling them to attack the coast at will. Although the American army had a few victories in Canada, they never gained any significant foothold in the area, and were repelled. The British made some offensives, including winning a battle at Washington, D.C, where they burned down the Presidential Palace, aka the White House.

Eventually, the Americans got better, or the British got worse, because attacks by the British after that generally got repelled. The Americans weren't doing well at all, and the British figured out that they weren't going to be able to re-conquer America, so they decided to settle their differences, signing the Treaty of Ghent to end the war on Christmas Eve, 1814.

And then, two weeks later came the Battle of New Orleans, a resounding victory for the Americans, pretty much the only one they had in the war. But that doesn't really have much to do with Canada anyways.

So, back then, the governor still had the power to not sign a bill into law, much as the Governor General does today. However, unlike today, they used to actually use that power. Often. So much so, that it got to the point that it didn't matter what the legislative assembly voted, you had to get it past the governor and his cronies.

This pissed people off, enough so that in 1837, there were separate riots in Lower and Upper Canada, led by Louis Joseph Papineau and William Lyon Mackenzie, respectively. These were quickly quashed, and the leaders had to spend some time cooling their heels / hiding in the United States, but their calls for responsible government did draw the attention of the British.

Now, the French Canadians didn't like that second part, because he was hoping for someday the French speakers absorbed by English speakers. They didn't really get much choice in the matter though, but thankfully that hasn't happened anyways.

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

So, the British passed the Union Act in 1840, which changed Upper and Lower Canada into West Canada and East Canada. They tried out the whole responsible government thing, and it seemed to be going along well. The real test came in 1849, with the passing of the Rebellion Losses Bill.

The Bill was to help pay for damages caused by the riots in 1837, and many felt that this money would just be going back to the rebels who caused it. To make a long story short, the governor-general passed it, despite his own personal objections to it. He got rocks thrown at him, his windows smashed, but hey, this whole democracy thing was working.

In the meantime, a lot of people were moving to Canada. Roughly 800,000, between 1815 and 1850. Most of these ended up in West Canada, since it had more usable land readily available.

They started running into problems, with the legislative assembly never able to agree on stuff, since it was worked so that East and West had the same representation. An idea tossed around was reorganize into separate provinces, let them deal with their own stuff, and only have the Federal Government worry about stuff that affects all the provinces.

Oh hey look, some of the Maritime colonies are already having a conference to talk about the same thing. Let's go join in, eh?

So, the early leaders of Canada figured out that they needed to expand westward, if for no reason other than fear that the United States would expand northward and cut off Canada's link to the Pacific. This wasn't all that out of the question, after all, only a few months before Confederation, the US had purchasedAlaska from Russia.

Of course, at the time there wasn't much out there. The only major settlement was the Red River colony, near present day Winnipeg. Most of the people living there were Metis, a group whose roots went back, usually only one or two generations, to a union between a member of one of the First Nations, and of the French traders.

Well, when the government sent out a governor to take over the new territory, some of them didn't really like this idea. Following their leader, Louis Riel, they took over Fort Garry, and set up a provisional government. They also sent demands to Ottawa, along the lines of protecting the civil rights and land claims of his people.

Apparently they were sparked off by a bunch of the newer settlers from Ontario trying to turn Manitoba into English-speaking Protestant Land. This didn't go over well with the French speaking Catholic metis.

This probably would have gone over well, but there were some settlers there from Ontario who opposed him. So Riel had a number of them imprisoned, and had one of them executed.

Well, thankfully two men, Bishop Alexander Tache and Donald Smith, travelled to Ottawa to actually talk to the government, and in 1870, the Manitoba Act was passed, making them Canada's 5th province. At the time, it was little larger than the settlement itself, but since then it has grown a fair bit.

The act guaranteed the rights of the citizens to the language, religion, and schooling of their choice. In other words, most of what Riel was asking for.

So, they sent out some soldiers to bring some law and order to the region, and Riel left in a fairly big hurry.

Summer, 1871, Canada talked British Columbia into becoming the 6th Province. They did this mostly by promising to build a transcontinental railway, to be started within two years, and finished in ten years.

Well, to get a railway through the Rocky Mountains was one of the most difficult feats of engineering of the time. And to do so, they started importing cheap Chinese labour. Immigration from Asia hasn't slowed up all that much since them, especially not once the railroad was finally completed, a bit late, in 1885.

With the completion of the railway, the tiny port of Vancouver suddenly became one of the busiest on the Pacific Ocean, and it began booming like you wouldn't believe.

It is the gateway of choice for most new arrivals to the country from Asia, and currently has the 3rd largest Asian population in North America.

P.E.I

Anyhow, they convinced Prince Edward Island to become the 7th province in 1873. I don't really know why. My reference says that it was because of work on the part of the railway that was in the Maritimes that did it, but since that never actually reached the island, that makes little sense.

P.E.I. didn't get an actual link to the mainland until the completion of the Confederation Bridge, in 1997. Much like the railway, crossing the 14 kilometers of the Northumberland Strait was one of the more impressive engineering feats of its time.

Update: stewacide tells me that they joined because Canada agreed to take over their national debt, which they got building their own railways on the island, and bought out a bunch of land owned by foriegn investors who didn't really care about the island.

Rebellion! Again...

Well, looks like old Louie was up to his old tricks. In 1885, he stirred up an uprising against the federal government in the south of Saskatchewan, and this time he had the support of a number of the local indian tribes, in addition to the Metis.

Anyhow, armed rebellion being one of those things that governments usually make a habit of not ignoring, they sent over some soldiers, and quashed it. Eventually he was hanged for treason, but it was one of the most controversial decisions that the courts have ever made in this country.

More farmers, Yay!

Things were going well for the country. They were finding some good places to mine in B.C. and northern Ontario, and of course there was the Yukon Gold Rush in 1897.

Anyhow, the country kept growing, especially in the relatively sparsely settled prairies. We were selling more and more wheat on the international market, which means more farmers. Eventually, in 1905, they figured that it'd be sustainable to carve two new provinces out of the N.W.T, and so they created Saskatchewan, west of Manitoba, and Alberta (Yay Alberta!) between Sask. and B.C.

That's #'s 8 and 9, if you're keeping track. Or if you're not keeping track I guess, if you were keeping track, you'd know that already.

The first military action that Canadian soldiers saw after Confederation was some limited role in the Boer War. Laurier, the Prime Minister at the time, didn't really want to help out Britain in Africa, but all the other cool colonies were doing it.

Then came along World War I. When Great Britain declared war upon Germany, Canada and most of the other self governing colonies got pulled in along with her. However, we got to decide to what extent we'd participate.

At the time, Canada's Armed Forces was made up entirely of volunteers, as it is now. However, casualties mounted, and they needed replacements. The idea of conscription was generally supported throughout most of the country, except for Quebec. They hated the idea in Quebec. I'm not really sure why, what with how much of the war was being fought in France, but that's a subject for another node.

UPDATE: Effovex says Why Quebec was against conscription: The rest of Canada wanted conscription because of pro-British sentiment. Quebec obviously didn't have much love for the British, whom they still saw as invaders. In Quebec, until the 60's, (and ironically, the rise of separatism), English interests controlled the economy. The best French speakers could aspire to be was a "professional": doctor, lawyer, politician. French people for the most part worked for English bosses.

Politically, Quebec was on an equal footing with the rest of Canada, but for the general population mostly felt like they were dominated by the English. They also had very little contact with France, and didn't share anything with them besides languages. So really, why would they want to die for either the british, who they saw almost as an enemy, or for the french, whom they barely knew since commerce was handled by Englishmen.

Anyhow, in the end, over 619,000 people served in some fashion during WWI, over 60,000 dying, leaving far too many buried In Flanders Fields.

They saw heavy fighting, and gained the respect of many of the others on the battlefield, with notable achievements including the Battle of the Somme, and Vimy Ridge

Between the Wars

To start off with, there were some discussions between the various members of the British commonwealth, and to make a long story short, the got the Statute of Westminster passed.

This little law stated that any laws passed in the United Kingdom wouldn't take effect in any dominion, unless they ask for it. For example, when WWII broke out, Canada wasn't automatically at war with Germany when Britain declared war. They waited a full week until they too declared war.

And, also, there was of course the Great Depression. It sucked. Everyone was poor, and there were horrible droughts on the Prairies. The soil was so dry that the winds just blew away layers of topsoil. It's kind of hard to grow crops without topsoil.

Thankfully that didn't last. Kind of hard to fight *another* World War if you're starving.

Here we go again...

Once again, the conscription issue. Prime Minister King had earlier promised not to conscript people this time around. He needed to take that back, without looking like a lying backstabbing bastard. So he held a national referendum. Once again, everyone except Quebec was in favour. I'm sure that the reasons they were opposed are pretty much the same as the last time.

Over a million Canadians served in the 2nd World War, and they saw fighting in every theatre of war. Canadian troops landed in Normandy on D-Day, and some of them managed to take their beach, get up the hill, and then take some other German defences from behind, where some American troops where trying to get up the hill, saving many of those who were still below them.

And like the Americans, and I imagine a number of other countries, the war effort, and the corresponding increase in productivity, revitalized the country's economy, bringing an end to the Great Depression.

Newfies Ahoy!

So yeah, remember that Newfoundland that we talked about waaaayyyy back in the beginning? They finally decided to join the country in 1949, after a *very* close referendum. We're glad to have them, because they brought along some rum, and without them, Fort McMurray would be a ghost town.

What else happened? Ok, we sent people to fight in the Korean War, about 27,000 people from all 3 branches of the Armed Forces.

In 1965, we finally got our own flag. Red Maple Leaf in the middle on a white background, with two Red strips on both sides. Beautiful.

Starting to gain mass popularity in the 60's, there sprung up a movement in the province of Quebec, where apparently a lot of people think that they should separate from the rest of Canada, and become their own country. This has pretty much been *the* issue that has dominated the political scene since then.

The argument is rather simple. Quebec has its own unique culture, language, etc, and shouldn't have to put up with us ignorant Anglophones.

In the end, the kidnappers were allowed to flee to Cuba, and martial law revoked.

Of course, the heavy-handed approach that Trudeau used to deal with the situation pissed off a *lot* of Québécois voters. But then again, Trudeau didn't exactly go out of his way to avoid pissing people off, he knew how to piss off other parts of the country too.

In 1976, the province of Quebec elected the Parti Québécois to its legislature, with leader René Lévesque as premier. The ultimate goal of this party is an independent Quebec. So, in true Canadian fashion, they held a referendum.

But, the problem with the referendum is the actual question asked. It's my opinion that they wussed out with asking if people supported full independence, so they asked something silly about negotiating with the government for future sovereignty. Rather a waste of ballots, if you ask me. Anyhow, that referendum failed.

Patriation

Canada had what some people saw as a problem. Our constitution, the British North America Act, was an act of the British legislature. So what, if we want to change it, we have to go ask the Brits to do it for us? I don't think so.

So, Trudeau made it his pet project to patriate our constitution. He haggled with the provinces about how to actually go about this. Quebec, under Lévesque balked at every step, because they wanted written in the constitution recognition that Quebec is a distinct society.

If you want to know the full story, go read the node. To make a long story short, the Supreme Court didn't clear up what was needed to change the constitution at all, and Trudeau just got the approval of every province *but* Quebec, and took that to Britain, and got the Canada Act passed. This was in 1982.

Quebec is a distinct society, and can pass laws to preserve that identity

Senators and Supreme Court Justices will only be appointed from lists given to the government by the provinces.

Everyone has to agree to make a new province, or make major changes to the way the Senate is run.

If you opt out of a program, you can still get paid for it as long as you have something similar.

Everyone agreed. We were all happy.

...

Until some elections happened. Manitoba and New Brunswick never got around to approving the accord before electing new governments, and the new Newfoundland premier withdrew the approval given by the last guy.

Well, I guess that was a waste of time, let's try again!

The Charlottetown Accord was different. It dealt mostly with defining what powers were the domain of the provinces, and which were the federal government's, and which were a little of both.

It had a clause, which defined some values integral to the nature of Canada, one of them being that Quebec is a distinct society.

Thankfully, it didn't place any requirements that everyone agree on some stuff, because I don't think that's ever going to happen.

Instead of asking the Premiers, they put this one up for a referendum, in October of 1992. It didn't do, with about 54% of those opposed, nationally, although it did pass in 5 provinces. Eh, I would have voted for it, if I wasn't 11 at the time.

Oh look, another referendum

In 1995 Quebec tried again. Again, the question was vague, asking something about sovereignty association, whatever that is. I heard suggestions that they'd still be using Canadian money, Canadian passports, and the like. Personally I don't think the rest of the country would go for that. You're either part, or you're not. No bullshit halfway deals.

Anyhow, this one was close. Like 50.4% opposed. Thankfully, support for separatism seems to have been steadily decreasing since then, and I don't think that's gonna change unless the government really screws up.

About 25,000 people live in the eastern half of the North West Territories, 20,000 of these are of Inuit decent. Some of them got the idea of trying to get their own territory, and it worked.

In 1999 they carved up the North West Territories again, with the eastern part changing to Nunavut, a new territory. The word translates into "Our Land" in Inuktitut.

Misc.

Ok, I've skimmed over a lot of things. I'm sorry, but this is a long writeup, as I'm sure you'll have noticed if you didn't just scroll down to the bottom.

There's some other stuff, like us entering into NAFTA, our role in the war on terror, the current state of our military forces, unsettled native land claims, and other stuff that I haven't touched on here. Hopefully myself or someone will get aro